Nuclear Family

A Memoir of the Atomic West

By: Ty Bannerman

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Paperback | 3 February 2026

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Paperback
168 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.5 x 14.0 x 1.6

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A lyric exploration of the complicated shared legacy of the atomic west through the lens of family history and the aftermath of the Manhattan Project.

Ty Bannerman’s family came to Los Alamos in 1952 to build nuclear bombs. This fact has become their origin myth, threaded into the very DNA of Bannerman himself, his relatives, and his children. No one on this planet has been untouched by the nuclear industry, but the Bannermans—working-class contributors to the atomic industrial complex—are a unique embodiment of this reality.

Nuclear Family is a lyrical memoir, a series of connected essays that use hard science, popular culture, and personal meditation to explore the role of nuclear weapons and the legacy of Los Alamos in the lives of one American family. Unsung heroes and victims, McCarthy-era interrogations, the Incredible Hulk, and corpses preserved for display are all linked, ultimately, to the bomb and the people who created it.

Industry Reviews

"Ty Bannerman is a gifted New Mexico journalist with deep roots in the life and times of his state. He has written a fascinating and thoroughly enthralling insider's look at the intimate impact that both the national security establishment and radioactivity itself can have on a family associated with the operations of the Manhattan Project and its evolution into the shadow world of mutually assured destruction." - V. B. Price, author of The Orphaned Land: New Mexico's Environment Since the Manhattan Project and Albuquerque: A City at the End of the World

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